Rich tourists offered a walk in space

IT WILL be the most expensive excursion in history. Tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) can now space-walk for a whopping $15 million surcharge.

Space tourists already pay $20 million for the pleasure of a few days on the ISS, organised by Space Adventures of Vienna, Virginia, along with the Russian Federal Space Agency and the spacecraft builder Energia. So far, three civilians have paid their way to the ISS, but their 10-day trips were confined to the pressurised hulls of the Soyuz spacecraft and the space station.

The tourists would space-walk outside the Russian ISS modules for 90 minutes, guided by a Russian cosmonaut. NASA and the other ISS partners have to approve tourists to the station, but Russia has yet to inform them officially of the space-walk option.

The next tourist, internet entrepreneur Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto, won't be space-walking. "Dice-K doesn't have time to prepare," says Space ...

To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.

To continue reading this article, log in or subscribe to New Scientist